Thoughtful Observations and News from The Homestead.....................
updated three times a week or "there about"

Welcome to our Blog

In March of 2011 my wife and I quit or jobs, cashed in our chips and left the big city behind to move to our farm hidden away in northeast Georgia. These are our observations on the news of the day and our adventures in homesteading, becoming self reliant, prepping and living a simpler, more fulfilling life.

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Jim Goad is one of my favorite internet writers, I have searched out and read everything written by him that I can find. Normally he writes about culture and his observations on politics and our society, but he has just ventured into new territory- Prepping for Armageddon. Take the time to chase the link, it's well worth reading.... twice even.

As the most tumultuous year in memory fades into wintry darkness, we face the giant black wall of 2012—The Year It’s All Supposed to End. An Indian guru prognosticates that 2012 will usher in Kali Yuga’s postmenstrual degeneracy, space cadet Terence McKenna prophesied that 2012 would take us to “Timewave Zero,” and a popular interpretation of the Maya calendar says the curtains will forever fall at 11:11AM on December 21, 2012.

The world as we know it may end in 2012, but not for any of those stupid reasons. There’s always the lurking threat of natural catastrophes such as pandemics, earthquakes, tidal waves, droughts, asteroids, or a single existence-obliterating solar flare. Then there are the disasters due to human folly such as radioactive spills, biological terrorism, and endless war.

So if the dollar is dying and food prices are rising, comestibles may become the stablest of currencies. As the saying goes, “You can’t eat gold, silver or lead.” True, but you can’t protect your six-gallon jugs of freeze-dried textured vegetable protein against looters if you don’t have ammo. The smartest investment you could make these days would be to trade some of your excess cash for food and bullets. If guns aren’t to your taste, at least invest your money in your own basement food bank rather than in Bank of America. But tread lightly—if you start getting too prepared, the owner of the local military-surplus store might rat you out as a potential terrorist. In a recent speech on the Senate floor, Rand Paul warned: Read the whole thing; packing a suitcase for armageddon

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Economic MessRobert A. Hall, Author of -The Coming Collapse of the American Republic- wrote-"In WWII Budapest, it is reported that the Nazis (doubtless to the approbation of their Islamic admirers) would line up Jews who were chained together on a bridge over the Danube. They would shoot the more fortunate one on the end, who would fall into the river, dragging the others to their drowning deaths one by one." The US economy has the prudent states chained to the feckless, and ultimately to other economies, eventually to Greece, Spain, Ireland, and the rest of the EU disaster states. It’s hard to see how their collapse wouldn't drag the rest of us into the abyss with them. We are close to fiscal collapse, followed by political and social collapse. Meanwhile, everyone in Washington is demanding, “Borrow what you must, tax who you can, but don’t cut me!”

In a time when the incumbent president of the United States and our congress has done their very best to obfuscate the realities of our nations troubles and hide from their share of responsibility for our bankrupted country, flawed foreign policies, Americas continued invasion and colonization by the third world and a "jobless" recovery (which is no recovery at all), we have nowhere to turn but away.

I no longer confine my weeping for the future--I weep for the present.

When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you … you may know that your society is doomed. Ayn Rand

Alexander Fraser Tytler

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;

From spiritual faith to great courage;

From courage to liberty;

From liberty to abundance;

From abundance to selfishness;

From selfishness to complacency;

From complacency to apathy;

From apathy to dependence;

From dependence back into bondage.

BarterI did some Bartering, because I have a welding and machine shop on our homestead I get some work in drips and drabs from neighbors. The latest project was modifying a wild hog trap. Had to re-work the door and fab up a trigger mechanism. My payment will be in ham steaks and sausage..... I really will work for food!

Saturday, December 24, 2011

The true meaning of Christmas is as well and widely known as the recipe for ice water, but for us Christmas has been and will always be a celebration of and an appreciation of our family. There are (in my mind at least) three things needed for a family to thrive and succeed. Faith, Hope and Charity.

Faith not confined to faith in God, but also faith in ourselves and our peers as well. We need to have faith that we are capable of being better than we are: smarter, more productive, and less inclined toward cruelty and stupidity.

Hope is the determination to keep on going despite obstacles and failures. It's the conviction that things can be better than they are, and that we are capable of making them so. Without hope, one attempts nothing; we merely struggle to hold what is already ours. Hope allows us to invest some part of ourselves in our future, and to persevere in the pursuit of improvement.

Charity, possibly the least well understood of the three, it is in part, the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It enforces the willingness to forgive transgressions against us and ours, and to help those who struggle to find the upward path.

All three virtues are required to commit to, to sustain, and to nurture a family. One cannot commit to a family without faith. One cannot nurture a family without charity. And one cannot persevere in the unceasing labors demanded by a family without hope.

Friday, December 23, 2011

TheBill of Rights and more specifically the first ten amendments were ratified into the Constitution on December 15, 1791. Fast forward 220 years to December 2011 as our government modifies The Bill of Rights by putting it thru a paper shredder.

Case in point: The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Passed by both the House (H.R.1540) by a vote of 283 to 136 and the Senate (S.1867) by a vote of 93 to 7. Within this Bill; sections 1031, 1032 and 1034 are legalese that allow Fedgov to arrest and detain indefinitely without legal recourse... American citizens within a newly broadened war zone which now includes our own homeland. No due process or evidence needed, accusations that you are involved with/in or are in support of (in some form) terrorism against the U.S. is all that is required. Fedgov's measurement for acting against American citizens will be in the form of "suspicion." An as yet undefined word that few with knowledge would disagree... is left undefined for purposes of a broader application and enforcement. Our elected officials have betrayed us and the Constitution once again, and what could only be described as a finger in the eye by the White House, they Tweeted this:

"Happy Bill of Rights Day! The US continues to stand with citizens & governments around the world who empower free expression."

To be fair, one must question such serious charges of Constitutional disregard and look to find the truth before excepting these accusations as reality.

-According to Senator Lindsey Graham, a strong supporter of the bill:

"1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland."

-Graham further stated:

"for the first time the homeland is part of the battlefield’ and people can be jailed without trial, be they American citizen or not." And "It is not unfair to make an American citizen account for the fact that they decided to help Al Qaeda to kill us all and hold them as long as it takes to find intelligence about what may be coming next. And when they say, ‘I want my lawyer,’ you tell them, ‘Shut up. You don’t get a lawyer."

-Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) a sponsor of NDAA says it was the White House that insisted the language be altered to include American citizens:

"The language which precluded the application of Section 1031 to American citizens was in the bill that we originally approved….and the administration asked us to remove (it) which says that US citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section."

“In this war, the enemy doesn’t have to win,” Hutson said. “They can cause us to do things we wouldn’t otherwise do, such as indefinite detentions, in the name of fighting a war,” he said, noting that the country has already subjected itself to invasive scrutiny that would not have been tolerated before Sept. 11, 2001.

In the case of the defense bill, the detention provisions would raise key questions about basic legal concepts that have long underpinned guarantees of freedom in America, including the habeas corpus right to contest being jailed and the Posse Comitatus Act passed after the Civil War to limit the military’s role in law enforcement. Hutson noted;“It’s going to cost lives.” he said, “it’s going to cost a way of life.”

Two retired four star Marine generals have written a stunning op-ed in the New York Times which demands that President Obama veto the National Defense Authorization Act, a bill that allows the government to use the military to indefinitely detain American citizens without due process.

Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar, both 4 star Marine generals, published the piece on December 12. The op-ed starts with a direct demand that President Obama veto the NDAA bill in order to protect our country from the “false choice between our safety and ideals.”

It then gets into one of the most blatant anti American treasonous provisions in the history of the United States.

Don’t be confused by anyone claiming that the indefinite detention legislation does not apply to American citizens. It does. There is an exemption for American citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032 of the bill), but no exemption for American citizens from the authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial (section 1031 of the bill). So, the result is that, under the bill, the military has the power to indefinitely imprison American citizens, but it does not have to use its power unless ordered to do so.

Even if our leaders support for NDAA was based on some obscure reasoning that it is beneficial to our war on terror, that in itself does not excuse their ignorance of the Constitution or the misguided nature of their supposed solutions. At what point will those undeserving be labeled as enemies of freedom because they disagree with our Maximum Leader or our governments minions. The term homegrown enemy combatant will be used as a muzzle on free speech and to quell organized dissent.

Lets not forget these recent examples of our governments mindset:Below are but a sampling of a -connect the dots- affair. It is not my intention to promote conspiracy theory. We are smart enough to interpret paranoia induced fantasies from legitimate erosion of liberties. It seems clear our Fedgov prepares for and treats catastrophe, collapse and uprising the same, all at the cost of our Constitution. It seems just as clear they feel the need to protect us.... even from ourselves. Truth be told it is their own misguided panacea they attempt to protect.

Congress is set to give the green light on funding for a massive expansion of TSA checkpoints, with the federal agency already responsible for over 9,000 such checkpoints in the last year amidst increased fears America is turning into a police state following the passage of the ‘indefinite detention’ bill.

The increase in funding has nothing to do with the TSA’s role in airports – this is about creating 12 more VIPR teams to add the federal agency’s 25 units that are already scattered across the country and responsible for manning checkpoints on highways, in bus and train terminals, at sports events and even high school prom nights.

Around the country, in tall, windowless telecom company buildings known as switches, NSA technicians quietly began installing beam-splitters to redirect duplicate copies of all phone calls and email messages to secret rooms behind electronic cipher locks.

At the NSA, thousands of analysts who once eavesdropped on troop movements of enemy soldiers in distant countries were now listening in on the bedroom conversations of innocent Americans in nearby states. “We were told that we were to listen to all conversations that were intercepted, to include those of Americans,” Adrienne Kinne, a former NSA “voice interceptor,” told me. She was recalled to active duty after Sept. 11. “Some of those conversations are personal,” she said. “Some even intimate. … I had a real problem with the fact that people were listening to it and that I was listening to it. … When I was on active duty in ’94 to ’98, we would never collect on an American.”

“It is one of the things that keeps me up at night,” Holder said. “You didn’t worry about this even two years ago — about individuals, about Americans, to the extent that we now do. And — that is of — of great concern.”

“The threat has changed from simply worrying about foreigners coming here, to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens — raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born,”

The Brossarts may well be eccentric or even misguided. They might be regarded by some as poor neighbors. But only those with a unique gift for dishonesty – and a large measure of cravenness – could depict them as a Predator-worthy menace. The SPLC is amply endowed with the former, and Sheriff Janke’s department apparently boasts a large measure of the latter.

As a result, we’ve seen the first test run of the vertically integrated Homeland Security State, in which your friendly local sheriff or police chief, using hit lists compiled by the SPLC, can call in the drones to help round up anybody he considers to be potentially troublesome.

On December 6, we reported on a document originating from Halliburton subsidiary KBR describing services KBR is looking to farm out to subcontractors. The document was passed on to us by a state government employee.

Our research has since discovered another document that further reveals the ongoing effort by the government to establish FEMA camps and provide services for them in the event of an emergency, including a real or more likely a false flag terrorist event.

The Army National Guard is now recruiting individuals to fill job positions described as an internment/resettlement specialist according to job postings on Monster.Com and other employment based Internet sites such as one listed here. In other words, they are recruiting individuals to man facilities that could be used to house political dissidents, so-called terrorists and other individuals that the government doesn’t like. The term “resettlement” indicates that individuals holding this job position could also be responsible for moving people to other locations against their will. It is a documented fact that the U.S. government has numerous facilities at their disposal that could easily be used to house large numbers of people. Combine that, with this new job posting by the Army National Guard, and it seems as if the U.S. government is continuing to prepare for an eventual popular uprising.

How else can one explain programs like Fusion centers located in major metropolitan areas and tasked with collecting information on all aspect of the lives of Americans, be it shopping habits, political beliefs, social networks and location information? These centers are specifically designed to identify threats, whatever that means, and either take action if necessary or categorize, itemize and save that information for a later date. It is not out of the question that in the event of a declared “emergency” Fusion center databases could be immediately utilized to generate lists of those who may be a danger to society, national security or themselves.

Or what about government mandated residential centers (aka FEMA camps) that are designed like prisons with double fencing and inward facing barbed wire? Are we really to believe these are going to house illegal immigrants and their families like one spokesperson indicated – and if so, exactly which enforcement agencies will be handling the rounding up of these illegal aliens considering that any such actions by state law enforcement agencies have led to mass protests not just from immigrants, but government officials who cosponsored legislation to build the centers in the first place. Even if they were designed as emergency refugee centers, it is difficult to imagine this being the case when those in charge refuse to speak about the purpose of the centers and explain why people displaced in the event of an emergency would require being locked inside against their will.

USA - FEMA Camps - Police State - PART 1 of 3

PART 2 of 3

PART 3 of 3

If these betrayals of our liberties are allowed to stand , we would be forced to rely upon the discretion of a demonstrably corrupt, paranoid and consistently idiotic government to not use these awful powers to strike back at legitimate domestic unrest.

Obama Justifies FEMA imprisonment of civilians!

"Develop an appropriate legal regime"

Listen carefully as the Leader of the free world tries.. in this video ..to wrap in the Constitution his explanation of wholly unconstitutional thinking. In doing so he sounds like a Brezhnev era apparatchik trying to sell us the party line.

Many years ago I had the misfortune of being in the employment of a chicken processing plant. At the beginning of the process (or the beginning of the end if your the chicken) there was an overhead conveyor designed in such a way as to hold the chickens -one after the other- hanging upside down. Once hung these chickens would ride along this conveyor for a 50 yard journey thru part of the plant and on a path leading to the beheading machine. One couldn't help but wonder what these chickens thought while traveling that last 50 yards of their life's journey. Did they undertand what was coming, could they sense the end was near or did they look at the other chickens around them with a small brained indifference until suddenly and briefly startled by their head being separated from their body.

I wonder when the American citizen will awaken to the realities around them, will it come with a final and long awaited recognition of lost liberties, or a startled awakening caused by a midnight forced entry and the sound of jackbooted thugs rushing up the stairs toward their bedroom.

Rand Paul on "Indefinite Detention"

Because of these and other governmental betrayals I have decided to change direction and commit The Homestead Report's efforts more towards prepping and survivalism. It's time to circle the wagons. I have realized that trying to sway political agendas was simply wishful thinking, two sides of a coin may differ, but in the end they are but one coin.I will still point out misdeeds from time to time but THR will spend it's efforts on self-reliance and self-sustainability.- JP

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear”.

Cicero's words ring true but I wonder, can we really survive our fools? We can, I suspect survive the -Prince of Fools- who now resides in the White House. And likely we can as well survive our collection of fools in congress. The damage they do can -over time- be undone. But the fools who put them in power and keep them there is another matter. A nation can survive it's fools, a nation of fools would seem doomed.

"History will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent it's happening." -Ronald Reagan

Our Philosophy

It's not a single ideology, but many ideas, including a reverence for nature and a preference for country life; a desire for maximum personal self-reliance and self-sufficiency and the nurturing of family and friendships. A belief that the primary rewards for hard work should be well-being, security in all matters and a non-dependence on an outside government and it's bureaucracies , and a simple life well lived.

Grasp strongly those things you hold dear and shed from your life the complexities of the world around you. Live for your dreams and wake up every morning smiling and thinking "another day in paradise."

“You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”-- Dr. Adrian Rogers